It\u2019s the question that preachers, teachers and parents dread, especially if they were shaped by the cultural earthquakes of the 1960s.<\/p>\n
But no one fears it more than youth ministers, who hear the private questions that young people fear to ask their elders. Youth pastors work in the no man\u2019s land between the home and the church.<\/p>\n
This is the question: \u201cWell, didn\u2019t you do any of this stuff when you were a kid?\u201d The young person may be asking about sex, drinking, drugs, cheating or, perhaps, lying to parents about any of the above.<\/p>\n
If youth ministers stop and think about it, they will realize that they usually say something like the following while trying to answer these questions, said the Rev. David \u201cDuffy\u201d Robbins, a United Methodist who teaches youth ministry at Eastern University near Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I answer that it\u2019s none of your business and the answer is between me and God, there\u2019s a pretty good chance you\u2019ll hear that as a \u2018yes,\u2019 \u201d said Robbins, writing in Good News magazine. \u201cIf I answer \u2018yes\u2019 to your question, there\u2019s a pretty good chance that you\u2019ll take that as permission to make the same mistakes that I\u2019ve made. If, on the other hand, I say \u2018no,\u2019 there\u2019s a good possibility that you might reason that then I couldn\u2019t possibly understand what you\u2019re facing or what you\u2019re going through right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, what that question amounts to is a lose-lose proposition for both of us, and I\u2019m not willing to put us in that position, so I\u2019m not going to answer that question.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a time when youth pastors \u2014 not to mention senior ministers \u2014 would have felt more confident answering.<\/p>\n
There was a time when adults thought it was their duty to tell young people that some things were right and some things were wrong \u2014 period. The assumption was that adults had a sacred duty to serve as moral examples and that was that. Candor was rarely part of the equation.<\/p>\n
Then the pendulum swung in the other direction, said Robbins, and many religion leaders joined what is often called the \u201cauthenticity movement.\u201d The goal was to open up and level with young people in an attempt to impress them with displays of openness and vulnerability. By sharing the details of his or her own sins and temptations, the youth pastor hoped to gain credibility \u2014 inspiring young people not to make the same errors.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s a problem with letting it all hang out, said Robbins.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt so easy to get carried away and, before you know it, your whole body language and the relish with which people tell these stories can send the wrong signal. You may end up leaving a kid thinking, \u2018Well, I wonder if I could do something really bad like that. That sounds kind of cool.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
The problem, he said, is that it\u2019s hard not to cross the line between honest, transparent disclosure and imprudent, naked exhibitionism. Nevertheless, it\u2019s true that young people need to hear that it\u2019s normal to struggle with sin and temptation and that there are adults who want to help them, because they have faced many of the same issues \u2014 in the past and in the present.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is completely appropriate, for example, for the students in my youth group to know that I struggle with lust,\u201d noted Robbins. \u201cOn the other hand, if I continue by saying, \u2018In fact, Sally, your mom is a fox!\u2019 \u2014 that crosses a line.\u201d<\/p>\n
This kind of self-exposure has to have a purpose, said Robbins. It\u2019s a good thing for adults to acknowledge that they struggle with sin, but it can be destructive if that\u2019s the end of the story. Young people need to know that God \u201cloves us the way that we are, but he doesn\u2019t intend to leave us as we are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one thing for me to tell my youth group that I struggled with this or that sin and, with God\u2019s help, have managed to put it behind me,\u201d explained Robbins.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something else to just say that I struggled and struggled and struggled and that there just doesn\u2019t seem to be a way to be forgiven by God and go on to lead a better life. \u2026 That isn\u2019t much of a Gospel, now is it?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s the question that preachers, teachers and parents dread, especially if they were shaped by the cultural earthquakes of the 1960s. But no one fears it more than youth ministers, who hear the private questions that young people fear to ask their elders. Youth pastors work in the no man\u2019s land between the home and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[48,305,1547,843,857,942],"class_list":["post-1448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alcohol","tag-drugs","tag-sex","tag-teens","tag-the-sixties","tag-youth-ministry"],"yoast_head":"\n